*EPF307 05/29/2002
Text: Ending Hunger Essential for Growth, U.N. Official Says
(Speaks in advance of World Food Summit-Five Years Later) (2110)

Eliminating hunger is essential to reducing poverty and achieving sustainable economic growth, says the North American director of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Speaking at a New York press conference in advance of the World Food Summit: Five Years Later, scheduled for June 10-13 in Rome, Charles Riemenschneider called for more investment in agricultural and infrastructure development in poor countries to reach the international goal of halving the number of people living with hunger by 2015. The goal was agreed to at the 1996 World Food Summit. Riemenschneider added that 75 percent of agricultural development funding will need to come from the private sector.

Riemenschneider said the upcoming summit will allow government officials and representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to come together to report on results achieved so far to reduce hunger and to discuss how to do more. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman will lead the U.S. delegation to the event.

Riemenschneider noted that if current trends continue, the number of undernourished people in the world will decline from 815 million currently to 580 million by 2015, well short of the goal.

He said that conflict and natural disasters are having a negative effect on agriculture in developing countries. He said the FAO has developed a plan for the international community to help the most food-insecure countries prevent disasters, alleviate immediate food shortages and create a basis for improved livelihoods through investments in farmer's assets.

Following is the text of Riemenschneider's prepared remarks:

(Note: In the following text, "billion" equals 1,000 million.)

(begin text)

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Liaison Office for North America, Washington, D.C.

Remarks by Charles H. Riemenschneider, FAO Director for North America
At a Press Conference to Launch the World Food Summit: five years later
United Nations
29 May 2002

Thank you all for coming this morning. I am happy to be here today to brief you about the up-coming World Food Summit: five years later [WFS], scheduled to take place from 10-13 June, 2002 at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Headquarters in Rome, Italy.

The Hunger Problem

To give you a better understanding of the magnitude of the "Hunger Problem", let me start by emphasizing few of the points made in the presentation we all heard and saw this morning:

First, it is important to realize that 815 million people go to bed hungry every night, 200 million of whom are children below the age of 5. 777 million people suffering from under-nourishment live in developing countries, that's roughly equal to 17 percent of the total population of these counties. Although this represents a decline from the 830 million estimated for the period 1990-92 (20 percent of the population), a high absolute number of undernourished persists. If current trends continue, the number of undernourished people is projected to fall to 580 million in 2015, well short of the 1996 World Food Summit target of halving the number to 400 million by that year. Each year, hunger robs 46 million years of productive, disability free life from people valued at over $16 billion.

Nearly all population increases in the future will be concentrated in developing countries, where the alleviation of extreme poverty and hunger, needs to be targeted. Although food insecurity is concentrated in the developing world, some 38 million people living elsewhere are undernourished, principally in transition countries, with pockets of hunger found in higher income countries.

In recent years, poverty has received renewed attention in the development discourse as evidenced by the Millennium Summit. The number of people living on less than one dollar a day in the developing regions was about 1.2 billion in 1998, meaning that, on average, one-quarter of the population of these countries was poor.

FAO papers prepared for the World Food Summit: five years later demonstrate that the fast rates of economic growth to which most developing nations aspire are simply unattainable as long as large numbers of their people are undernourished and deprived of the opportunity to learn and to work to their full potential. Therefore, it is imperative to understand that hunger is as much a cause as an effect of poverty, to say nothing of the moral obligation on each of us to see that all our fellow humans enjoy their right to adequate food.

Getting rid of hunger is an essential first step in the quest for poverty alleviation and sustainable economic growth. We all do ourselves a big favour by facing the fact that widespread hunger can only breed hopelessness, desperation, and conflict which know no boundaries: it is in everyone's self-interest to banish hunger from the world.

Progress

Let me start with some good news. First, some 58 developing nations registered a decrease in the proportion of their population labelled as undernourished between 1990-92 and 1997-99. However, the proportional decrease in many of these countries has not been sufficient to offset the effect of population growth. Hence, only 32 countries have reduced their hunger numbers in absolute terms.

I am also encouraged by the broad consensus that has emerged in the international community that the focus of development assistance must be on reducing poverty so as to achieve the International Development Goal of halving poverty levels by 2015. There also appears to be a large measure of consensus on the need to raise ODA [official development assistance] allocations towards the set goal of 0.7 of GDP and to focus this principally on poor countries, although the number of developed countries that have moved in this direction remains small.

It is, however, worth noting that the seriousness with which governments of both rich and poor countries approached the International Conference on Financing for Development provides evidence of the growing acceptance that it is in everybody's interest to move quickly towards a more just and equitable world through the timely achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Progress has also been made in reducing indebtedness under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and in linking this with investments aimed at aspects of poverty alleviation. Cautious optimism is also encouraged by the extent, already noted, to which transnational civil society movements are emerging as powerful advocates for a more equitable world. Many NGOs are already deeply engaged in providing support services to small farming communities, often with an emphasis on sustainable land use practices. Finally, there appears to be a growing recognition of the threat that hunger and the extreme deprivation with which it is associated pose to peace and security.

Challenges to Food Security

But many challenges remain in the war against hunger. Most developed and developing countries alike have fallen short in meeting the obligations they committed themselves to at the 1996 Summit. All the evidence indicates that the resources set aside to address hunger have been falling rather than rising. Mobilizing the political will to reverse this disturbing trend is a key goal of the World Food Summit: five years later.

Natural and Man-Made Disasters

Natural and human-induced disasters are major sources of human suffering. They also have tremendously damaging effects on farmers' welfare as well as on local and national food suppliers. But most alarming is the steep increase in the number of countries afflicted by conflicts, which have risen from an average of 5 in the 1980s to 22 in 2000. Estimates suggest that the direct impact of conflict on agriculture (in 23 countries for which data were available) amounted to almost 55 billion dollars between 1990 and 1997, in the latter year accounting for 40 percent of their combined agriculture GDP.

Natural disasters also seem to be increasing. From October 1999 to June 2001 alone, 22 countries were affected by droughts, 17 experienced floods or hurricanes, 14 were involved in civil strife or war, 2 were hit by serious earthquakes and 3 endured exceptionally cold winters.

Reducing the vulnerability of some of the most food-insecure countries in the world, such as the Horn of Africa region, to the shocks resulting from natural and human induced hazards is enormously complex. In response, FAO has fashioned a policy of sustained efforts by the countries concerned, regional players and the international community aimed at preventing disasters, alleviating immediate food shortages and creating a basis for improved livelihoods through investment in farmers' assets, especially for rural populations.

International Trade

International trade is playing a rapidly growing positive role in the maintenance of world food security, enabling commodities to be grown where local conditions offer comparative advantages. But the increasing movement of agricultural products around the world generates new hazards, accelerating the spread of plant pests and animal diseases, including food-borne diseases that affect humans. While the globalization of agriculture and the liberalization of trade in farm products are widely considered to generate aggregate welfare gains, the way in which these benefits are distributed between farmers and consumers, poor countries and rich countries, has become the focus of much debate.

Inadequate Commitment to Agricultural Development

Although data are limited, FAO analyses show that, in countries with a very high incidence of undernourishment, public expenditures on agriculture do not reflect the importance of the sector in overall income or its potential contribution to the alleviation of hunger and poverty.

FAO estimated the future volume of investments required in agriculture and supporting infrastructure and services to meet the goal of reducing the number of the hungry to 400 million dollars? by no later than 2015. Current investment levels fall some 30 billion dollars short of the 180 billion needed annually in developing countries to reach the Summit target.

Experience suggests that 75 percent of the additional funding required will have to come from the private sector, especially farmers. But, Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries and Least Developed Countries will continue to depend on international assistance from public sources as they mobilize insufficient domestic savings and fail to attract substantive volumes of Foreign Direct investment.

Unfortunately, these needs have not been reflected by ODA commitments from the major bilateral and multilateral donors to developing countries for agricultural development, which amounted to only about 10 billion dollars in 2000 marking a 3 billion decrease from 1990. World Bank lending for agriculture declined from 3.656 billion in 1990 to 1.37 billion in 2000.

Translating Commitments into Action

The World Food Summit: five years later will provide an opportunity for governments, the international community and civil society to reaffirm their commitment to the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action. However, we need to move beyond these broad commitments and make a statement in very specific terms of how all concerned will work together to step up time-bound actions in support of hunger eradication, so as to ensure that the Summit goal is achieved by 2015.

There is strong agreement on the need to identify the constraints that have emerged in trying to reach the goal of the WFS. For that reason, we will have roundtable discussions with prime ministers and other high-level ministers on where we stand with the WFS Plan of Action. We will look at results achieved as well as obstacles met and means for overcoming them. It's one thing to have information in technical documents, but it's more effective for political leaders to get to grips with this material by discussing it with their peers. We will also involve provide for NGO [nongovernmental organization] interaction with political leaders during a multi-stakeholder dialogue addressing these same issues.

Recognizing the complex nature of the food security problem and the many actors involved, a number of parallel events will also take place during the Summit. An NGO Forum for Food Sovereignty will take place from June 8-13. A Parliamentarians' Day organized by the Interparliamentary Union will occur on June 11th and a meeting of private sector interests organized by Italian business groups will take place on June 12th. FAO will host a number briefings and meetings on issues ranging from success stories in agriculture development, gender issues, to subregional food security strategies to further enlighten the debate.

In the words of FAO Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf: "The purpose of the World Food Summit: five years later is to give new impetus to worldwide efforts on behalf of hungry people. We must raise both the political will and the financial resources to fight hunger. The International community has repeatedly declared that it is dedicated to the eradication of poverty. Eliminating hunger is a vital first step."

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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